Chile has highest inequality in OECD

Chile became the first South American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2010, following great strides in economic development. For example, Chile currently has a healthy government borrowing to GDP ratio projected to remain stable for at least the next few years. However, GDP and borrowing aren’t everything when assessing the econmic health of a nation! As can be seen from the interactive chart below, Chile has the worst levels of inequality of all OECD members. The metric here can be interepreted in the following way: Higher scores mean more inequality and scores range from 0 to 1. With a score of 0 all individuals in a country would receive the same benefits (e.g. salary). In a scenario with a score of 1, a given country would have the maximum inequality, 1 person owning all the wealth, for example. For Chile the inequality index is around .5, not good, making them one of the leaders on this list of shame. In reality, the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots will only fester over time and become symptomatic through various manifestations such as strikes, riots and protests, as has recently been witnessed in the UK (ranking an unhealthy 7th on this list). With the rise of wealth in a country comes responsibility to bring along the majority of its citizens, not just the few…